“We are very hopeful that Members of Parliament will continue to show their support for farmers and that they won’t flip flop and change their vote,” said Dave Carey, co-chair of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance.

Bill C-234, which would amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Price Act, was once again the subject of debate as Parliament resumed today. Conservative MP Ben Lobb tabled a motion to essentially reject the Senate’s amendments to the bill.

In an email exchange, Carey explained that if this motion is carried, the amendments made in the Senate would be eliminated. However, the bill would return to the Senate for another reading.

Late last year, the Senate voted to amend Bill C-234 to remove greenhouse and barn heating from the proposed exemptions, and to reduce the bill’s sunset clause to three years from eight. This left only the proposed exemption for fuels used to dry grain.

If the motion passes, Carey said he doubted the Senate would try to amend the bill again.

“That would raise a legitimate question of constitutionality and the role of the Senate,” he said.

When the bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons in March 2023, it did so with support from the NDP, Bloc Quebecois, Conservatives and a few Liberal MPs. Today, alongside Conservative MPs, NDP MP Alistair MacGregor spoke in favour of the motion, as did Liberal MP Kody Blois. Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux spoke against it.

Bloc Quebecois MP Yves Perron, speaking through French translation, said he is is in favour of Bill C-234 but said he was concerned that the bill would be embroiled in a ping-pong match between houses.

He suggested the bill should be passed as-is while it’s in the House’s grasp.

“We have a gain now on the grain drying. I think we should take it,” Perron said in an interview, adding that further work could be done afterward to get an exemption for building heating.

He cited the partisan environment exhibited in the Senate, which included accusations of intimidation during debate around the bill.

“If we send back the bill to the Senate, well, when will it come back?” he said.

Perron said he’s in favour of widespread carbon price exemptions for agriculture because of the need to compete with subsidized farmers in the U.S. and E.U.

The motion did not go to a vote today. Carey said he’s hopeful it could be voted on next Tuesday.

Proponents of Bill C-234 are concerned it will be endlessly delayed and die on the order paper.

“With the carbon price set up to increase this April again, we are urging the Liberals not to delay it and to let it go to a vote as soon as possible,” Carey said.

–Updated Jan. 30. A previous version referred to Yves Perron as leader of the Bloc Quebecois.

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Bill C-234, which passed the House of Commons in late March, remained on the Senate’s order paper for debate Wednesday afternoon, after adjournment Tuesday night without a vote on third reading of the bill — nor a vote on a proposed amendment from the Independent Senators Group (ISG).

The new amendment, put forward Nov. 9 by Ontario Senator Lucie Moncion — an ISG member appointed to the Senate in 2016 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — would amend the bill’s proposed sunset clause so that after eight years, approval for an extension would require Parliament to pass a new bill.

Marc Gold, a non-affiliated senator who serves as the Liberal government’s representative in the Senate, was among those speaking Tuesday in favour of Moncion’s amendment.

Gold said that without Moncion’s proposed change, a review and extension of the bill’s proposed farm fuel exemptions beyond eight years “could proceed with a simple resolution passed in both chambers or by a decision of the executive branch, with no role for parliamentary scrutiny and oversight or committee examination and study.”

Senator Don Plett, leader of the opposition, called Moncion’s proposed amendment “frivolous” and said C-234, as was passed in the Commons, would already allow for a further extension to be initiated — and the length of that extension determined — only by the government, via an order-in-council.

A further extension also wouldn’t be granted unless approved by both the Commons and Senate, he added.

As written, C-234’s language for extending the time frame of its sunset clause “is not unique to this bill,” he said, citing a similar sunset clause for rail interswitching provisions in Bill C-30, the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act.

Rather, Plett said, by forcing a Senate-amended C-234 back to the Commons, “the only utility of this amendment is to carry the (Liberal) government’s water and defeat the bill.”

‘Intimidation’

Debate on C-234 was to continue Tuesday evening but Quebec Senator Raymonde Saint-Germain, also an ISG member and Trudeau appointee, rose at that time on a question of privilege, citing an incident on Nov. 9 which she said infringed on senators’ privilege “to conduct our business free from obstruction and intimidation.”

At the Nov. 9 session, she said, ISG Senator Bernadette Clement’s motion to adjourn debate on the proposed amendment was met with some Conservative senators “demonstrat(ing) physical and verbal intimidation directed at members of my group and myself.

“After violently throwing his earpiece, (Plett) stood before Senator Clement and me as we sat at our desks, yelling and berating us for proposing this routine motion that would see debate resume the following week, when we returned,” Saint-Germain said, adding that another Conservative senator, Michael MacDonald, shouted the word “fascists” at ISG senators.

Later, Saint-Germain said, “at least two” Conservative senators retweeted a post on social media platform X “that not only spread misinformation about the proceedings but encouraged members of the public to call and harass” Clement and Senator Chantal Petitclerc, adding that it “elicited high volumes of threatening phone calls and emails to these independent senators.”

Clement, speaking Tuesday evening to Saint-Germain’s question of privilege, said “Canadians deserve to know that adjournment doesn’t mean a bill is being nixed, but that nuanced explanation wasn’t offered by people pointing the finger at me.”

Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagne noted some senators who had been mentioned in Saint-Germain’s question of privilege weren’t present Tuesday evening, and said she would hear “brief additional arguments” on the matter on Thursday.

However, Conservative Senator David Wells then put forward a separate question of privilege stemming from the same Nov. 9 sitting, saying Moncion had “walked over from her seat and accused me of bullying” after the session was suspended.

Such an action, he said, “creates an atmosphere that may hinder any senator from even contemplating engaging in free debate, lest they be accused of bullying.”

Moncion replied that she was not threatening in her approach but wanted to call attention to a separate tweet from Wells alleging that Gagne, as speaker, “in concert with the ISG leadership has shut down debate” on C-234.

“Receiving a point of privilege was disappointing, but I understand where you’re coming from,” she said. “You want an apology from me, I apologize, Senator Wells, and I apologize in front of this whole chamber.”

Asked by Gagne if he wished to pursue the matter further, Wells replied that “given the debate and the open discussion we’ve had as well as my professional and personal regard for Senator Moncion, I consider this issue closed.”

Debate on Moncion’s amendment resumed briefly before the Senate adjourned for the day at 11 p.m. to resume at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Conservative MP John Barlow brought forward Bill C-275, “an Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms),” as a private members bill. It arrived before the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Sept. 28.

Barlow, the Conservatives’ shadow minister for agriculture, agri-food and food security, and MP for the southwestern Alberta riding of Foothills, had also put forward the previous version, Bill C-205, in 2020. The new bill takes up roughly where it left off.

It states: “No person shall, without lawful authority or excuse, enter a building or other enclosed place in which animals are kept, or take in any animal or thing, knowing that or being reckless as to whether entering such a place or taking in the animal or thing could result in the exposure of the animals to a disease or toxic substance that is capable of affecting or contaminating them.”

It applies fines up to $250,000 or up to two years’ jail time for individuals, and fines up to $500,000 for organizations.

While not explicitly mentioned, Barlow indicated the bill is in reaction to actions of activists, such as those who snuck into a turkey farm in his riding — likely a reference to a 2019 incident in which a group of activists broke into a turkey barn on a Hutterite colony north of Fort Macleod.

Barlow told the committee the bill applies existing penalties in the Health of Animals Act to people who trespass on farms in ways that contravene biosecurity practices and increases penalties to groups who encourage these actions.

While a few provinces have similar laws, “I think it behooves us as the federal government to have a national program in place that will cover all provinces and territories because that is not happening now,” Barlow said.

He added that while trespassing laws might apply to these scenarios, they only applied small fines that would not be enough to deter groups who he said fundraise off protests.

“There has to be teeth to this,” he said.

Barlow said the act would not limit people’s rights to protest, or target whistleblowers who lived or worked on the farm.

“This bill does not limit an individual’s rights to peaceful protest on public property,” he said. “This bill also does not prevent whistleblowers from coming forward when they are witnesses to practices that jeopardize our food security, our food safety or the welfare of animals. Canadian farmers and ranchers have a moral and legal obligation to look after their animals.”

Barlow also argued that the bill would help protect the mental health of farm families who feel targeted and attacked by activists.

Bill C-275 incorporates some of the amendments made to C-205 but drops a previous amendment that dropped “without lawful authority or excuse.”

When questioned about this, he told the committee that stakeholders saw this as redundant, as the bill had already been carefully worded to protect whistleblowers.

That amendment had been made by NDP agriculture critic Alistair MacGregor, who argued that references to trespassing must be removed as trespassing laws are not federal jurisdiction.

“If you are a farmer or farm employee, if you are a transport driver or if you are a protester, if you violate the biosecurity protocols in place on a farm, this law applies equally to you. That’s the main essence of my putting it forward,” he said in a committee meeting in June 2021.

In a meeting Thursday, Barlow said that on Oct. 16, the Commons ag committee would consider the bill clause by clause before returning it to the Commons to be voted on.

— Geralyn Wichers is a reporter for the Manitoba Co-operator.

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Bill C-275 would make it an offence to enter a place where animals are kept, without lawful authority or excuse, if doing so could result in a biosecurity risk.

“Simply put, this amendment would apply existing penalties within the act to people who trespass on farm property and facilities where animals are kept,” Alberta Conservative MP John Barlow said during the bill’s second parliamentary reading May 1.

The bill cleared second reading in the Commons on June 21 and was referred to the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food for its consideration. The Commons adjourned later that day for the summer and is not scheduled to return until Sept. 18.

“The bill would not, in any way, disallow protesters from protesting on public property about the issues that they are passionate about and that are important to them,” he added.

However, it would add significant fines to organizations that encourage trespass into livestock zones, said Barlow. He maintained that it would not hinder whistle-blowers from reporting practices that jeopardize the safety and welfare of livestock.

“What this really focuses on is the biosecurity risk and the health of our animals. We saw what COVID-19 did to Canada’s economy, a human-borne virus,” Barlow stated.

“It devastated not only our economy, but economies around the world. Imagine what a similar animal-borne pandemic would do to Canada’s agriculture industry.”

Protesters aren’t willingly jeopardizing farm biosecurity, he added, but they don’t understand protocols and how proactive measures protect against potential animal pandemics.

“Strengthening the biosecurity measures for trespassers is something farmers, ranchers, food processors and farm groups across the country all support,” he said.

Barlow referenced the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza that resulted in a $360-million loss to the poultry sector in 2004 and, in more recent outbreaks, saw more than 7.5 million domestic birds euthanized across Canada from late 2021 to present day.

He said an outbreak of African swine fever in Canada would cost billions to Canada’s pork industry, which employs 45,000 people and involves billions of dollars in export revenue.

“We know that agriculture and agri-food is going to be a critical pillar of our economy moving forward. To ensure it can reach its full potential, our farm families need to know that the government of Canada and the House of Commons stand with them, will protect them, and put these measures in place,” Barlow said.

Francis Drouin, parliamentary secretary to the federal agriculture minister, said the government supports the bill with amendments.

“Bill C-275, as worded, creates legal risks,” he cautioned during the reading.

He added that, “existing federal and provincial statutes can be used for managing cases of trespassing on farms.”

As written, the bill primarily focuses on broadly prohibiting protesters from trespassing, rather than protecting animal biosecurity as it relates to the spread of disease, Drouin said, and that falls outside the government’s scope of responsibility.

Drouin said an amendment focused more squarely on biosecurity inside the farm gates would also reinforce the benefit of biosecurity zones, which are critical to prevent spread of animal disease.

“We need to be mindful of how best to do that without creating legal challenges,” said Drouin. “Fundamentally, legislation should not introduce new legal issues. It should also complement, not duplicate, the laws we already have.”

In recent years, five provinces have passed legislation prohibiting trespass on farms or areas where animals are housed.

In Manitoba in 2021, the province passed two such laws. The Animal Diseases Amendment Act made it an offence to go into a biosecure farm area or interact with animals on that site without permission, interact with animals without permission during transport or interfere with animal shipment trucks.

Another piece of legislation removed the requirement for trespassers to be warned before they could be charged with trespassing, so long as land is marked or partially enclosed.

Drouin’s concerns around the proposed bill’s wording echoed those of animal rights advocates, who said Bill C-275, like its predecessor, targeted animal rights protests on agricultural property under the guise of strengthening biosecurity measures.

Bloc Quebecois MP Yves Perron said he supports the bill, and recalled the impact on Saint-Hyacinthe’s Porgreg pig farm in 2019 following a sit-in by animal advocates.

“They (protesters) were taking pictures and saying that they wanted to protect the animals whose health and safety they were jeopardizing,” said Perron. “Afterwards, it was discovered that a disease had been introduced into the herd because biosecurity protocols had been violated.”

He acknowledged existing laws govern this. However, it is challenging to connect the disease and the trespassing incident in a court of law.

In the Porgreg case, 11 activists were found guilty of obstruction and break and enter in April 2022. The Quebec Crown sought a suspended sentence with two years of probation and 150 hours of community service in December 2022, but an official sentence hasn’t been announced.

Perron called for more significant consequences to discourage the behaviour and minimize the potential for harm to livestock.

“We ask agricultural producers to take strict precautions when it comes to meeting health standards,” Perron said. “We cannot have people deciding to jeopardize all that based on an ideology that is a little extreme.”

A version of this article first appeared in Farmtario.

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Members of the House of Commons voted June 21 to adjourn until Sept. 18, while the Senate did likewise June 22, to return Sept. 19.

While the two houses of Parliament were able to see to passage and royal assent of the federal budget bill last week among other government legislation, at least three private members’ bills — on which multiple farmer groups have lobbied for months — are now parked for the summer, including:

• Bill C-234, An Act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act;
• Bill C-280, An Act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (deemed trust – perishable fruits and vegetables); and
• Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management).

C-234

Introduced Feb. 7 last year in the Commons by Conservative MP Ben Lobb, C-234 passed third reading in the House on March 29 this year. It last appeared in the Senate on June 13, when it passed second reading.

The Senate on June 13 also referred C-234 to the standing Senate committee on national finance, “to examine and report on the subject matter of the bill.” The bill was also referred to the standing Senate committee on agriculture and forestry, which the Senate also authorized to take into account any findings from the finance committee’s study.

C-234 would grant farmers an exemption from federal carbon pricing on propane and natural gas used for drying grain and heating of barns.

Farmer groups including the Alberta Federation of Agriculture, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan and Manitoba’s Keystone Agricultural Producers had called on the Senate on June 13 to pass the bill before breaking for the summer.

“We understand that senators are looking forward to enjoying the summer season. Prairie farmers want to enjoy theirs by knowing this bill is passed so they can look forward to the fall harvest,” APAS president Ian Boxall said at the time in a joint release.

“If we experience a wet harvest like 2019, I have real concerns about the added burden farms across Saskatchewan and the Prairies will be forced to absorb.”

C-280

Introduced on June 8 last year by Conservative MP Scot Davidson, C-280 passed second reading in the Commons on May 17 this year and was referred at that time to the Commons standing committee on agriculture and agri-food.

Several Canadian produce growers’ groups said last Thursday in a joint release that they were “thrilled” to then see the committee pass the bill “without amendment and with the support of all political parties” on June 21.

C-280 proposes to set up a “deemed trust,” which the groups described as “a vital financial protection mechanism for fresh produce sellers in Canada.”

Such a trust is meant to help growers of fruits and vegetables secure payment in the event of buyer bankruptcy. “The perishable nature of fresh produce, coupled with the industry’s typically longer payment terms, leave sellers unable to recover losses when faced with buyer bankruptcy,” said the groups, which included the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada, Canadian Produce Marketing Association and Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation.

“The recent case of Lakeside Produce in Leamington, Ont. serves as a reminder of the urgent need for a financial protection tool to safeguard this essential sector and uphold food security in Canada,” they said.

Such a trust could also help restore Canadian producers’ access to the U.S. Perishable Agricultural Marketing Act Trust (PACA Trust), which provides a protection mechanism to secure payment in case of a U.S. buyer’s bankruptcy.

The U.S. government in 2014 withdrew Canada’s preferred access to the PACA Trust payment dispute arbitration mechanism, unless or until such time as Canada comes up with an equally effective resolution process for buyer defaults.

“Looking ahead to the final rounds of debate and voting in the House of Commons, we are optimistic that all parties will continue to lend their support and work to advance the bill as quickly as possible,” FVGC executive director Rebecca Lee said. The groups acknowledged the bill would not return to the Commons again until this fall.

C-282

Introduced June 13 last year by Bloc Quebecois MP Luc Theriault, C-282 completed third reading in the Commons last week, on June 21, and passed first reading in the Senate the following day.

The bill, Theriault said last year, is meant to “protect supply management from further dilution in future international trade negotiations,” following tariff rate quota concessions granted to imports through the Canada-E.U. free trade agreement (CETA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) which he said “really did a number on this agricultural system.”

The bill would amend existing federal legislation with new provisions to exclude supply management from future trade negotiations.

Groups representing farmers in Canada’s supply-managed dairy, poultry and egg sectors, in a joint release June 22, hailed the bill’s passage in the Commons, saying it would “safeguard the sustainability” of production in those sectors.

However, the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, which represents producer groups in export-dependent ag sectors, said June 21 its members were “profoundly disappointed” in C-282’s passage in the Commons.

CAFTA president Dan Darling said the bill will diminish Canada’s negotiating hand in future trade negotiations and MPs who voted to pass the bill “have chosen to entrench protectionism and favour one economic sector above all others.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Witnesses from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) spoke to MPs’ concerns about livestock diseases at a committee meeting last Wednesday afternoon.

Biosecurity preparedness has been a relevant issue recently, with rising concerns over African swine fever (ASF), foot-and-mouth disease and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which saw 13 outbreaks in Quebec alone in April, and killed over 50 million farm birds in the U.S. in 2022.

Dr. Mary Jane Ireland, executive director of CFIA’s animal health directorate, told the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture and agri-food that the agency has ‘playbooks’ for every disease they are aware of, and that hazard-specific plans are updated as diseases evolve around the world.

Given recent outbreaks, avian influenza has been of particular concern. Ireland said CFIA has plans in place for its quick detection.

“When avian influenza is suspected, a sample is taken, and it is sent to a lab, that can be a provincial lab as (an) initial first step,” Ireland said. “To confirm the disease formally, the sample will be tested at the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease (NCFAD) in Winnipeg.”

“We take early action based on early findings of the provincial labs.”

CFIA is also committed to dedicating personnel to HPAI response and containment. VP of operations Philippe Morel said “up to 10 per cent” of the agency was deployed to respond to outbreaks last fall.

Priority would be placed on depopulating infected areas, he said.

Global communication continues to be key to biosecurity preparedness, Ireland said.

“We need to continue to… monitor global events and trends. What are the diseases we’re seeing emerge, where are they? They inform our policy; they inform our regulatory approach. And they inform our import controls,” she said.

CFIA, she said, “has worked extensively with other federal departments and with industry and governments to ready ourselves, to be ready for an incursion, to prevent an incursion of a foreign animal disease.”

CBSA director general Shawn Hoag spoke to the importance of border control to Canada’s biosecurity preparedness.

All importers must provide information about their goods prior to entry, he said. CBSA agents have the authority to inspect shipments and hold them until they are either released or destroyed as necessary.

Options to better gather import data are being explored, he added, such as an increased number of x-rays and detector dogs.

Tom Rosser, assistant deputy minister for AAFC’s market and industry services branch, said the department is planning response simulations to ASF later this week.

— Jonah Grignon reports for Glacier FarmMedia from Ottawa.

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Bill C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by Ben Lobb, the Conservative MP for the southern Ontario riding of Huron-Bruce, passed third reading for adoption in the House of Commons on Wednesday by a vote of 176-146.

The bill, introduced in February last year, amends the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to extend the carbon price exemption for farmers’ eligible fuel purchases to also include purchases of marketable natural gas and propane.

The bill also expands the allowed uses of exempted fuels, to include grain drying systems as well as heating or cooling of farm structures directly involved in livestock or crop production, such as barns or greenhouses.

C-234 also includes a sunset clause which will see the exemption brought back in eight years for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it, if new technologies available at that time don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Private members’ bills — legislative and policy proposals brought forward by individual MPs rather than the governing party — rarely pass in the Commons but are more likely to gain traction in a minority government. A previous version of C-234, Bill C-206, died on the order paper before the 2021 federal election.

C-234 also drew support from several farmer and commodity groups, including 15 national organizations speaking under the banner of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance (ACA), a policy group set up in 2021 “to ensure that Canadian farmers’ sustainable practices are recognized.”

The ACA, on Twitter Wednesday, called the bill’s passage in the Commons “a huge step towards realizing the full potential of #CdnAg.”

Keith Currie, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture — an ACA member group — thanked Lobb and supporting MPs on Wednesday on Twitter, adding “Now let’s get it through the (Senate).”

Canadian Canola Growers Association vice-president and ACA chair Dave Carey on Wednesday also credited Lobb’s fellow Conservative MP John Barlow, Liberal MP and Commons standing ag committee chair Kody Blois, NDP ag critic Alistair MacGregor and Bloc Quebecois ag critic Yves Perron for “outstanding leadership” on the file.

In a separate release Tuesday, Andre Harpe, chair of ACA member Grain Growers of Canada, said that “by extending the exemption for qualifying farming fuels to natural gas and propane, this amendment will unlock innovation and drive sustainable growth in the sector.”

“Farmers incur a carbon price when using natural gas and propane for necessary farming practices such as grain drying, land irrigation, and heating or cooling their barns,” GGC said in Tuesday’s release. “As there are no viable alternatives, pricing these activities does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources.”

C-234, GGC said, “will allow farmers to invest in practices that drive innovation and new efficiencies that reduce fuel usage by putting money back in their hands.”

MORE READING: Finding ways to maximize grain drying efficiency

The eight-year sunset clause was added at the standing ag committee last November. That clause, Barlow said at the time, is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

Separately on Wednesday, the federal government announced $22.2 million has been allocated to another 45 projects under its Agricultural Clean Technology (ACT) Program – Adoption Stream, related to “adopting more efficient grain drying technology.”

That brings the adoption stream’s allocations so far to over $37.1 million across 99 grain dryer projects across Canada, the government said in a release.

The adoption stream of the $495.7 million ACT is budgeted for $60 million in all, including $50 million for purchase and installation of more efficient grain dryers and $10 million for “fuel switching initiatives.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Introduced last June 13 by Bloc Quebecois MP Luc Theriault, Bill C-282 came back last Wednesday to pass second reading in the House of Commons and be referred to the Commons standing committee on international trade for review.

Private members’ bills — legislative proposals brought to the Commons by individual opposition MPs or backbenchers, rather than the governing party — typically have slim to zero chance of passage, but are more likely to find traction in a minority government.

Also, C-282 — which cleared second reading in the Commons Wednesday by a vote of 293 to 23 — touches on an issue politically dear to a majority of MPs. A previous version, C-216, also cleared second reading but died on the order paper ahead of the 2021 federal election.

C-282 would amend the federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, requiring that its minister “must not make any commitment” through any international trade treaty or agreement further affecting the tariff wall around Canada’s domestic supply-managed production.

Specifically, it would block a trade minister from offering to either increase other countries’ tariff rate quotas (TRQs) on dairy, poultry or eggs, or lower the duty Canada charges on dairy, poultry or eggs imported beyond that quota.

The bill was put forward in the wake of concessions that granted additional TRQs on dairy, eggs, chicken and turkey coming from countries party to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), Canada-E.U. free trade agreement (CETA) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

In international trade, a TRQ refers to a set quantity of a given commodity or product that can be imported with lower or no tariff. It doesn’t restrict how much can be imported at the full over-quota tariff rate, but Canada’s supply management system sets a prohibitively high tariff wall on such imports.

“We rejoice that the Liberals have rallied to our position in order to offer the Quebecois agricultural economy the support it merits,” Theriault said in a Bloc release Wednesday.

“Agriculture is a very important economic sector, but it’s more than that: it represents a healthy, fair model of management that favours agriculture on a human scale.”

Compensation packages were set up for domestic supply-managed sectors affected by those concessions, and the governing Liberals have pledged not to yield any further market share of supply-managed goods under any pending or future international trade pacts.

However, Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, the Bloc’s trade critic, said in the party’s release Wednesday that C-282 has been “rendered necessary after a series of loopholes in three trade agreements,” even though five previous commitments were made by way of motions in the House of Commons to protect supply management.

Yves Perron, the Bloc’s ag critic, said the party has repeatedly called for this sort of legislation because “we know perfectly well that the United States and other states ‘will always be hungry.'”

The bill has garnered support from supply-managed commodity organizations such as Dairy Farmers of Canada, which said last week C-282 is needed since recent trade pacts have “removed opportunities for Canadian farmers, processors, and other members in the value chain.”

Quebec’s Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA) concurred, with that group’s president Martin Caron saying “concessions with promises of compensation are not a model for trade negotiations.”

Canada has other free trade agreements pending or awaiting negotiations, and it’s important to conserve the supply management system and Canada’s domestic markets “without additional breaches,” he said.

‘Dangerous precedent’

That’s not to say all farm groups are lined up behind C-282. The Canadian Cattle Association, in a statement Monday, said the bill “threatens the ability for Canada to negotiate current and new free trade agreements” and is “detrimental to all Canadian industries who benefit from trade.”

Trade talks, the CCA said, “work by compromise and negotiation (and) coming to the table with no room for compromise while handcuffing our trade negotiators will inevitably lead to poor trade negotiations.”

The CCA said C-282 “also sets a dangerous precedent” in that it “protects the interests of a specific sector in trade negotiations” and “could greatly incentivize our trade partners to adopt similar legislation. If our partners follow a similar path, Canada’s access to international markets will be diminished.”

Dan Darling, president of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, which represents the CCA and other trade-dependent ag and agrifood organizations in Canada, said in a separate statement Thursday the bill “contradicts established trade rules and severely constrains Canada’s ability to negotiate the best free trade agreements for all sectors of the Canadian economy, agriculture and non-agriculture alike.”

C-282, he said, “puts our record of support for free trade in jeopardy and has the potential to set us back decades.”

C-282’s path forward through the Commons and Senate also may not be so unanimous. The New Democrats’ ag critic Alistair MacGregor, speaking in support of the bill in the Commons last Nov. 16, said its predecessor C-216 split the caucus of the official opposition Conservatives roughly two-to-one against when it passed second reading in March 2021 by a vote of 250 to 80.

“It will be interesting to see, when this bill comes to second reading vote, what the blue team will be able to do on this,” MacGregor said at the time.

In the same debate last November, John Nater, a Conservative MP from southwestern Ontario, said C-282 “has some challenges in how it would be implemented and how it would be dealt with at the negotiation table, but that is something that could be considered at the committee stage.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

CORRECTION, Feb. 14, 2023: Paragraph 17 adjusted to fix an incorrect reference to the CCA by its former name. We regret the error.

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C-234, a private member’s bill sponsored by southwestern Ontario Conservative MP Ben Lobb, appeared before the Commons’ standing committee on agriculture and agri-food on Monday and was reported back to the Commons.

According to Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), the bill — which had its first reading Feb. 7 and second reading May 18 — is now expected to come up for third reading during the House’s winter session before moving on to the Senate.

C-234 carries amendments to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act which expand that legislation’s definition of eligible farming machinery to include grain dryers as well as barn heating and cooling systems, and which extend the exemption for farming fuels to include farmers’ purchases of natural gas and propane.

“This exemption is needed to reflect the realities of the entire Canadian agriculture industry and the undue financial burden the carbon tax places on all the necessary practices undertaken by farmers and ranchers like drying grain, irrigating crops, or heating and cooling livestock barns,” Conservative MP and opposition ag critic John Barlow said in a release Wednesday.

The standing ag committee on Monday did pass several amendments to Lobb’s bill, tightening its scope.

Those include a sunset clause — which Barlow said is a reflection of Canadian farmers’ confidence that new and sustainable technologies will come forward to replace the gas- and propane-fired options they now use to dry grain and heat barns.

That sunset clause will see the exemption brought back in a set period of time for review, allowing whatever government is in place at that time to let it lapse — or to amend or extend it if the available technologies don’t yet warrant ending the exemption.

Barlow’s original amendment called for a 10-year sunset clause, but committee members later voted to shorten that period to the bill’s eight-year anniversary — citing testimony the committee heard suggesting such technology would be available sooner rather than later.

Another approved amendment will limit the exemption’s use in farm buildings, to only include those structures directly involved in crop or livestock production, such as barns or greenhouses.

‘Critical issue’

Grain and livestock producer groups have since lined up to cheer the bill’s return to the Commons, urge MPs of all parties to approve its passage and call for Canada’s Senate to do the same.

“It is clear that (ag committee) MPs understand the lack of current alternatives for grain drying and the need to provide an exemption until viable technological solutions are developed,” GFO chair Brendan Byrne said Tuesday in a separate release.

With “no viable fuel alternatives” available for the practices covered in C-234, imposing carbon pricing on those activities “does not provide a signal to lower emissions from these sources,” Grain Growers of Canada said Wednesday in another release.

Instead, GGC said, C-234 “will put money back into the hands of farmers so that they can continue to invest in practices that drive innovation, further efficiencies and reduce fuel usage.”

“With rising input costs, inflation and supply chain shortages, carbon surcharges on necessary farm activities adds an additional burden and pulls capital away from critical investments,” GGC chair Andre Harpe said in the same release.

The Agricultural Carbon Alliance, a body representing the GGC and 14 other national-level grain, livestock and general farm groups, said Wednesday that with the bill approaching third reading, it now plans to launch a public advocacy campaign “that will call for a bipartisan consensus on this critical issue.”

Fram group representatives appearing before the ag committee echoed many of the same concerns. “We understand that the carbon price is a market signal for producers to adopt low-emission energy alternatives wherever possible, but over the past year that signal has been dwarfed by skyrocketing costs for inputs such as fertilizer, gasoline and diesel,” Canadian Federation of Agriculture vice-president Todd Lewis said at the committee’s Oct. 24 meeting.

“Even when fuel prices aren’t at record highs, farmers constantly seek to increase fuel efficiency wherever possible.”

However, another speaker, University of Saskatchewan associate professor Tristan Skolrud, cautioned the committee at the same meeting that C-234 runs the risk of further drawing out the timeline for development of viable alternatives.

With “limited changes in producer behaviour, there will be limited reductions in (greenhouse gas) emissions from grain drying before greener alternatives become available,” he said.

“The development of greener alternatives will require significant private capital, and if grain drying is unregulated, the signal to private capital will be lost. Previous testimony on this amendment suggests that sufficient alternatives are at least 10 years away.

“Keep in mind that this estimate is a function of the carbon price. A higher price will shorten that time frame if private capital senses a profitable opportunity.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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As of Tuesday morning just after midnight CT, Marie-Claude Bibeau was leading in her Sherbrooke, Que.-area riding of Compton-Stanstead by a spread of over 3,300 votes over her nearest challenger, Bloc Quebecois candidate Nathalie Bresse, with 273 of 275 polls reporting.

The makeup of the House of Commons is expected to have changed only marginally as a result of Monday’s election.

Overall, the Liberals were elected or leading late Monday night in 155 of 338 ridings, followed by the Conservatives with 120, the BQ with 33, the New Democrats with 27 and the Greens with two.

By comparison, at the dissolution of Parliament on Aug. 15, the Liberals held 155 seats; the Conservatives, 119; the Bloc, 32; the NDP, 24; and the Greens, two. Five seats were held by independents.

Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives were holding over 34 per cent of the popular vote nationwide, ahead of Trudeau’s Liberals, with just under 32 per cent; Jagmeet Singh’s NDP, with 17.7 per cent; Yves-Francois Blanchet’s BQ, with just under eight per cent; Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party, with just over five per cent; and Annamie Paul’s Greens, with 2.3 per cent.

At least two of the incumbent agriculture critics from the opposition benches are also poised to return to the Commons.

Lianne Rood, the ag critic for the Conservatives, easily held her southwestern Ontario riding of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex by a spread of more than 16,400 votes over Liberal challenger Sudit Ranade with 243 of 245 polls reporting.

Alistair MacGregor, the NDP’s ag critic, also held his British Columbia riding of Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, by a spread of more than 7,200 votes over Conservative challenger Alana DeLong, with 237 of 250 polls reporting.

BQ ag critic Yves Perron, meanwhile, appeared to be pulling ahead late Monday in a tight race in his Trois-Rivieres-area riding of Berthier-Maskinonge.

Perron faced a relatively strong challenge from a previous MP for the riding — Ruth Ellen Brosseau, a former House leader and former agriculture critic for the NDP. Perron had been trailing for part of the evening but was ahead of Brosseau late Monday by a spread of just over 900 votes with 270 of 274 polls reporting.

Trudeau’s cabinet table is expected to see some losses, including Peterborough MP Maryam Monsef, the minister for rural economic development; southern Ontario MP Deb Schulte, minister for seniors; and Nova Scotia MP Bernadette Jordan, minister for fisheries and oceans, who were trailing in their ridings late Monday.

The House of Commons is scheduled to resume sitting Oct. 18. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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